The Year of Convergence

A study conducted this past spring by ABI Research found that one in four U.S. mobile phone users would change carriers in order to gain access to Wi-Fi/mobile convergence—and the same study predicted that by 2011, more than 325 million Wi-Fi/mobile handsets will be shipping each year.

“Convergence presents carriers with a compelling opportunity to build subscriber loyalty and migrate more users to mobile applications such as email, Web surfing and multimedia downloads,” ABI analyst Philip Solis said at the time. “We expect to see a number of U.S. carriers launching convergence programs over the next 12 months.”

And so they have—T-Mobile launched its Wi-Fi/mobile Hotspot @ Home service a couple of months ago, only days after Cincinnati Bell did the same with its similar CB Home Run offering

All of this, of course, is extremely good news for the Wi-Fi Alliance. “We are very excited about the progress that this space has made in the last 12 months or so,” says Karen Hanley, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s senior marketing director.

In addition to the arrival of fixed-mobile convergence services like Hotspot @ Home and CB Home Run, Hanley notes, the Wi-Fi Alliance has now certified about 100 handsets and has seen major product announcements regarding popular Wi-Fi-enabled devices like the Apple iPhone and the RIM BlackBerry 8820.

Hanley stresses that Wi-Fi/mobile convergence can provide significant benefits for every party involved. For end users, of course, there’s the promise of better coverage at home and cheap (or free) calls over a Wi-Fi network – while operators can count on Wi-Fi to reduce the burden on the cellular network. “From a carrier standpoint, these kinds of offerings really help them better manage their expensive licensed spectrum by augmenting it with the Wi-Fi spectrum, keeping customers happy and reducing churn,” she says.

And so while this year has seen the arrival of these services, Hanley looks to next year for convergence’s real coming-out party. “2008 is the year,” she says. “The handsets are out there… it’s starting to really catch on. More carriers will be offering the services, and more users will really be taking advantage of it.”

Toward that end, the Wi-Fi Alliance and the CTIA last fall launched a joint testing program for Wi-Fi/mobile handsets, giving operators a source of independent data on performance and interference issues. “The carriers have access to that data to make their hardware choices,” Hanley says.

And the Alliance’s WMM Power Save program helps manufacturers maximize power efficiency in Wi-Fi-enabled devices. “It essentially manages the sleep and wake modes of the Wi-Fi radio to extend the battery life,” Hanley says. “Many of these handsets are now approaching the capability of a handset without Wi-Fi—and that’s a key objective.”

Programs like those, Hanley says, make Wi-Fi Alliance certification all the more important. The Wi-Fi Alliance estimates that 70 percent of U.S. consumers are now aware of and look for the Wi-Fi Certified logo on wireless devices—and as Wi-Fi moves into new areas, from converged handsets to cameras and MP3 players, she says, that certification is increasingly crucial. “As we bring in new users and new Wi-Fi aficionados, it really is important to get the word out to the broader community that Wi-Fi Certified is something that everyone should insist on,” she says.